I'm still in my low motivation state of mind. Usually this means depression, but I don't feel bad. I did a mini-binge last night--yuck, I gave myself a stomach ache. Maybe I'm just adopting a different set of motivators--I don't WANT to go back to the bad old days of emotional eating. The experience of that kind of eating is frequently unpleasant. For me, it often results in a cycle of constant craving for sweet then salty then sweet then through it all over again so that I graze for hours with only fleeting moments of satisfaction.

Nervousness was the binge trigger.

Here's Marden's response to some of us fussing about weighing in the 180's. (I was 183 a few days ago. I'd been in the 170's for months, then gained in fall and again over Christmas.)

OK you Girls who are stuck in the 180's,
Time to move on though I'm sure you're nice ladies,
I'm here in the 190's and ready to move down,
There isn't room for all of us in the 180's town,
So, move on you dear friends, if you please,
Don't be offended while I tease.
We are all in this together,
This is one storm that together we will weather.

It DOES help to have the support of my BEST buddies!

I'm putting this post in my journal because it shows a way that I can get myself unstuck.

Sunday 1/9/05
Yes! Yes! YES!

I'm back on track!

It's so weird. Sometimes this is such a struggle, and sometimes it just flows.

I've been putting off using my stuck bike (aka stationary bicycle). Yesterday I exaimined my reasons for that and realized that several small dumb fears had gotten in the way.
1) I was afraid of dust since the bike is in the basement.
2) I was afraid of being bored.
3) I was afraid of hurting my knees.
4) I was afraid of getting too tired to do the other things I needed to do.

Once I'd got those clear, I was able to deal with them.
1) Vaccuumed and reminded myself that I hadn't had an allergic reaction when I used the stuck bike before.
2) Decided to wait and see if I got bored. Was so busy figuring out my pulse rate and shifting around to avoid getting saddlesore that I didn't get bored.
3) Paid attention to how my knees felt and didn't work them too hard.
4) Decided to go easy even if I couldn't reach aerobic pulse rate levels, but it turned out that I was working at an intense aerobic level when I thought I was just doing mild aerobics. Slowed down even more! Yes!

You know how you can hear something a thousand times and then on time 1001 it suddenly gets through? PeachyPowerBabe recently wrote something about how she works out no matter what. You "just do it." (I've always HATED that motto!) Well, I've been doing my little pre-breakfast walk no matter what. Every day I watch the reasons come up in my mind for why TODAY is the day I shouldn't do it. But it's such a lttle thing. It adds about 5 minutes max to my ME time. And since I've done it for a few weeks now, I know it's very do-able. Even enjoyable! So is my potato-free breakfast, though some days, halfway through my veggies I think that it's not going to be enough. But since I've done it for awhile now, I know that by the time I'm finished I will be full.

So now it's time for the 20 minutes on the stuck bike to join my little walk and my BEST breakfast in the category of things that I know I can do. And "just do."

BSQ Posted these recommendations for successfully maintaining weight loss. I put them here so I could find them again.

1. always eat breakfast. 90% of those successful at maintenance eat breakfast at least 4 x's a week.

2. Move ... not only regular exercise but added movement in day to day stuff. The article cites walking and the successful ones average 11000 - 12000 steps a day.

3. Read Labels. to see if a package you are about to eat is more than one serving.

4. Keep track. They say not necessarily keeping a food and exercise journal, but write it down to be aware. toss it when you're done.

5. plan for rough patches. this talkss about counter balancing stress. :the first 6-12 months of maintenance is when stress can trigger you back to old habits because it takes that long for your changed habits to take hold."

6. start small after a slip. like cut out dessert or skip a glass of wine. It emphasizes taking baby steps otherwise you'll frustrate yourself.

7. the more consistent the better. This talks about folks who eat more on holidays or weekends, compared to those who basically follow the same eating year round. (Guess this means several meals and #8 means a single meal.)

8. Make special occasions count. Thinking to yourself is this just another meal or a special occasion I want to enjoy. If the latter, enjoy it, indulge, these are once in a while things.

9. don't wait to get a life. Don't use phrases like "when I lose weight I am going to learn to ..."

10. Know it will get easier.

I don't normally buy this magazine, but I liked this issue. I was a bit dismayed that some of the good articles aren't available online.

Here is an edited version of myBEST post today.

Congratulations to me! I lost a bushy-tailed pound! SNP (Squirrel with Neurological Problems. It's a long story.) has gone to a licensed wildlife rehabilitation volunteer, a regular lady who lives in a modest one-story house with (currently) 147 rescued domestic birds and an unspecified number of rescued wild birds and small mamals. The drive was an hour each way. SNP may be ready for release in spring.

TD (Teen Daughter--who rescued squirrel against parents' advice) didn't make the trip. Her neck was too sore (another long story), and I respect that, but she has been very difficult all week (even before the neck spasm). There was a big scene here yesterday before we left to take squirrel, with 3/4 of family (including DH!) in tears. One of those things with 28 years of history as a couple and 18 years raising this particular child behind it. TD apologized for moodiness and has been much better today. She might get promoted from TD back to DD eventually. Probably not real soon.

(DS looked up from his Dungeons & Dragons game today to say, "Dungeon Master and Dear Mother have the same initials." I'm not going to analyze that. It just nice to have someone around who thinks I'm Dear Mother instead of Mommy Dearest.)

DH and I are still emotionally wrung out, but WE DIDN'T BINGE. Our drive took us through Fastfoodville, USA. We had forgotten to bring water and we needed a rest room, but instead of stopping at a MacGreasy's, we stopped at a large grocery store. It turned out to have a drinking fountain as well as restrooms so we didn't even have to buy bottled water. When we got back in town, we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant and (here's the REALLY amazing part) WE ATE REASONABLY. We are both emotional eaters, so this was a victory.

I'm still feeling pretty fragile, so I'm not setting any eating goals for this week other than to eat my BEST breakfast every day. (Cottage cheese, veggies, a few homefries, hot choc) My new exercise goal: I will walk a half mile every day, keep working on Physical Therapy homework, attend PT 2x. I'll be watching out for depression the next few days.

Okay, losing the next pound can't possibly be as hard as getting rid of the bushy-tailed pound, can it? Imagine if we had to search the internet for someone willing to take every pound we wanted to unload! YIKES!

I've known that I'm not in control of my eating for nearly 30 years. In my teens, I heard the conflicting voices that began to sound off about food in the 1970's. My family didn't discuss these things, but I read and heard about them. To me it felt as if controversies about health, morality, and politics got served up at every meal. The one thing that everyone in the world seemed to agree on, was that all of my favorite food was BAD. And while I ate my sugary, preservative-laden, meaty diet brought to me by oppressed farmworkers (and my oppressed mother), people were starving in India or someplace. But still I ate!

Now I can look at the thinking I did then and realize that I was one depressed little teenybopper. In the classic book on depression "FEELING GOOD" by David Burns, I can go down the list of Definitions of Cognitive (Thought) Distortions and recognize how each type of thinking effected how I felt about food.

ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING? Yep, I did that alot.
SHOULD STATEMENTS? You bet!
PERSONALIZATION? Who doesn't personalize everything when they're a teenage girl?

At the time, it just seemed that I was the first and only person to realize how awful the world was and that when I moved out on my own I would either eat whole grains or whole gallons of ice cream. I didn't do either one, but you get one guess as to which way I tended.

In my 20's, I figured that my eating style would cause me to be overweight eventually. I gained. I lost through Weight Watchers . I had a baby at age 29, and I was slim again after her birth for about a year.

In my 30's I started putting on the pounds. Another baby, and this time I didn't get slim again.

In my 40's--more of the same.

I've been reading posts and journals for over an hour, so all I'm going to do is start this journal.

I intend to write mainly about eating issues. I'm half way through my "weightloss journey." More tomorrow I hope.